Monday, February 02, 2009

Great value from Argentina - can we forgive some spoofiness?

Tonight's wine is from Argentina, and it's delicious. It actually won the trophy for best varietal wine under £10 at this year's Decanter World Wine Awards. It's really impressive. But, if I'm honest, it tastes a bit spoofy. Like it was made to win awards. The colour is a little too dark, the fruit a little too sweet, the tannins a little too smooth. In fact, it almost tastes like it has been tweaked a little with grape juice concentrate, just to add a little sweetness and colour. I'm just trying to find out how the winemaker could have got the colour this dense and the fruit so deliciously sweet. I'll try to find out from the agent.

Can spoofiness be forgiven? This is the sort of wine that will be adored by people new to wine, and I suppose there's nothing wrong with that. It is, after all, very tasty in a hedonic sort of way, and I'm enjoying it. It's just that for an intelligent audience like mine, I wanted to point out my concerns: delicious, really impressive, but perhaps spoofy.

Vinalba Malbec Reserva 2006 Mendoza, ArgentinaDeep coloured. Amazingly sweetly fruited, alluring nose with very ripe blackberries and a hint of blackcurrant jam. The palate is lush and sweet with ripe, dense, pure fruit and some savoury, spicy notes. Lots of impact here: a dense, full, sweet red wine with lovely purity of fruit and real flavour impact. It's unashamedly new world in style and will be sure to win lots of fans. 90/100 (£9.99 Majestic)

A crowd-pleaser...a wine that wins tastings....Jamie..could you drink a whole bottle?..and how much alcohol?..Spoofy..more like Spooky..lolThese wines scare me...but after 30 years drinking the stuff..I am hardly new....